IT Worker Got The CEO Blacklisted From Email After He Complained About His Automatic Replies

I’m gonna go ahead and say it…this person’s boss seems like a total jerk!

They explained that this took place when they worked for an IT company.

“A couple of years ago I was working for an IT company which also provided server management and general domain and E-Mail services.

And they had to deal with a certain Mr. Bigwig…

We had some really big companies as clients, so we were used to some really idiotic demands, but most of the time we could convince the people whose main job seemingly was “to be in charge” to listen to our expertise. Not so Mr. Bigwig.

Mr. Bigwig was the CEO of a large automobile sales company. He also was the type of guy who prided himself with being a “great negotiator” and “thinking so far ahead, regular people can’t follow”. And he was a complete *** to everyone.

Mr. Bigwig went on a holiday once and set up an automatic out of office reply in his mail account, but – as is the technical standard – everybody who wrote him during that time only received the reply just one single time.

This guy wasn’t happy when he got back from vacation.

When Mr. Bigwig returned from his vacation this infuriated him a lot so he called our support line and yelled and cussed his way up our hierarchy until he had me on the phone. I tried to tell him that this was working as intended and tried to explain why, but Mr. Bigwig wouldn’t have any of it.

This went all the way to our CTO who sent him a waiver to sign, stating that we would deactivate this limitation, but not be liable for any consequences (in short). Then he told me to make the changes to MBs account. I tried to object, but the CTO just smiled, shrugged and went into his office. Mr. Bigwig was happy. He won and booked this as his latest negotiating victory.

And then they got a call from the Bigwig.

Now let us jump to December the 29th of the same year. I get a phone call. From Mr. Bigwig. He is not happy. He is not happy because he is blacklisted on about every blacklist in existence.

He is also not happy because he can’t receive or send any email. And he is not happy because he can’t find any mail he received during the Christmas holidays or near them. He can’t find them because the nice number in brackets besides his inbox folder, that indicates the amount of unread mails he has, reads 50,000.

A quick look around the server logs tells me there are indeed some mails he did not receive. 150,000 to be exact. They are still pending delivery because his inbox is full.

This guy was NOT HAPPY.

He is also not happy because he is the laughing stock of everybody he ever respected.

Now let me guide you as the reader to the bottom of this. What you don’t know and we also did not know at the time is: Mr. Bigwig was member of a very exclusive group of business owners, CEOs and high ranking politicians around the globe.

The kind of people you would imagine sitting around a large oak table, smoking cigars, drinking 200€ whiskey and discussing world dominance.

This group had a mailing list. A ******, basic mailing list.

Here’s how it all went down.

It went something like this:

Bigwig: (Out of Office Reply) Hey, thank you for you mail, but I am on holiday! I will reply later.

Somerandomdude @mailinglist: Merry Christmas!

Mailinglist @everybody: Hey guys, Somerandomdude is wishing you Merry Christmas.

Bigwig @mailinglist: Thanks for telling me, but I am on holiday! I will reply later.

Mailinglist @everybody: Hey guys, Mr. Bigwig is on holiday, he will reply later.

Bigwig @mailinglist: Thanks for telling me, but I am on holiday! I will reply later.

Mailinglist @EVERYBODY: Hey guys, Mr. Bigwig is on holiday, he will reply later.

Bigwig @mailinglist: Thanks for telling me, but I am on holiday! I will reply later.

Mailinglist @EVERYBODY: Hey guys, Mr. Bigwig is on holiday, he will reply later.

Bigwig @mailinglist: Thanks for telling me, but I am on holiday! I will reply later.

Mailinglist @EVERYBODY: Hey guys, Mr. Bigwig is on holiday, he will reply later.

…repeat until the servers give out.

Oh, boy, Bigwig was REALLY not happy now!

So B-Diddy was not the only one who had thousands and thousands of mails in his folder. All his fancy pants networking contacts had too. Mr. Bigwig raged hard at everyone who was brave enough to get on the phone with him, threatened to sue us for millions of Euros and to “end us as a business”.

We finally put him through to our founder, who listened to his rant and told him he would send him a solution within the next ten minutes.

He sent two documents: A scan of the signed waiver, in which the consequences of disabling the out of office message restriction were outlined in detail, and a service contract, allowing us to fix the problem to our abilities without any financial budget limitations, but with a really nice (read: enormous) estimated budget.

It was a good year for the company, with an unexpected spike in revenue, just before new years eve.”

Here’s what people had to say.

This reader had a story to tell about their boss.

Another Reddit user has dealt with this at their IT company.

Another Reddit user thought this was GLORIOUS.

Another individual dealt with a similar kind of situation.

And one person talked about a group email that really went sideways.

This guy seemed like a real gem, huh?

That was sarcasm, by the way…